Anu Ramaswami
University for Minnesota
Ramaswami is among the leading scholars on sustainable urban infrastructure and has seen her work adopted as policies and protocols for developing sustainable cities in the United States and internationally. She is lead PI and Director of the US National Science Foundation’s interdisciplinary Sustainable Healthy Cities Network.Ramaswami’s research spans environmental science, industrial ecology, sustainable infrastructure design, urban systems analysis, and integration of science and technology with policy and planning for real-world implementation in communities. She has developed novel interdisciplinary research and education in these diverse areas. She is the author of a graduate-level textbook on integrated environmental modeling, and is presently developing a Social-Ecological-Infrastructural System framework to study Sustainable Urban System.Ramaswami received her B.S. in chemical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology–Madras, India, and her M.S. and PhD in civil and environmental engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. Ramaswami serves on the United Nation’s International Resource Panel and co-chairs its inaugural report on SDGs to the UN.
A team led by Ramaswami at the University of Minnesota has created and implemented a curriculum that engages eight universities and students cutting across environmental science, environmental engineering, infrastructure engineering, urban planning, public health, and public affairs with a focus on infrastructure transitions for sustainable, healthy cities. The design of the curriculum is unique because instruction is offered in a hybrid format, both in-person and online, over the course of one full year in the form of a certificate program called “Sustainable Healthy Cities”
This presentation will discuss the rationale and design of the curriculum and share results from the first year of offering this certificate program across the network. The certificate consists of a sequence of three courses: (1) Interdisciplinary Environmental Study of Urban Sustainability (2) Defining and Measuring Environmental Sustainability, Health, Well-Being and Livability (3) Urban Infrastructure Systems for Sustainable and Healthy Cities. We will present in this paper the design and implementation of all three courses, described in detail below.
Course 1:
Interdisciplinary and multi-sectoral approaches are needed to develop solutions to urban challenges. This course serves as an introduction to interdisciplinary and action-oriented research with the objective of developing vocabulary across disciplines while becoming familiar with the practical application of a research framework to help inform policy and action. Course objectives include:
- Learn how to design interdisciplinary environmental studies using framework approach, focusing on sustainable and healthy cities
- Share best practices to work together across disciplines
- Understand research designs from different disciplines to address the overarching policy challenge of developing sustainable cities
Course 2:
At present there is no unified framework that simultaneously represents the impact of urban infrastructure on the environment (environmental sustainability), as well as the benefits/risks posed to human well-being in cities (health and livability) by infrastructure-environment interactions.
Students in this class will learn about:
- Theoretical and methodological foundations for connecting the social-ecological-infrastructural systems (SEIS) framework to measurement of EHL outcomes.
- Infrastructure and socio-demographic parameters within individual cities:
with environmental impact (energy, water, etc.) and ecosystem impact (impact on E).
with multi-scale health risk factors and outcomes, focusing on objective measures of health such as days of sickness, mortality, etc. (impact on H).
with health and livability (now including environmental parameters) focusing on subjective well-being (impact on W and L).
- Cross-city comparisons in the U.S. and the developing world to understand the linkage between EHL outcomes and socio-demographic, infrastructure, urban form, and environment/ecosystem.
Course 3:
This interdisciplinary online course will explore innovations both in physical infrastructure design and in the design of policies and institutions to inform infrastructure transitions towards sustainable healthy cities. The course will apply and integrate concepts from diverse disciplines into a real world city focused design project addressing the sectors of energy, transportation, urban food systems, storm water and green infrastructure, and water-waste water systems in order to map the pathways and potential barriers toward infrastructure transitions in a city, highlighting potential tradeoffs and co-benefits.
